Authors: Edward Lazellari
Relative to everyone, Krebe was a blur compared with the frozen minions around them, but because Seth was the object of his murderous rant, each second of movement seared into his brain, slowing time to where a hummingbird in flight became still. In that next nanosecond, Seth was aware of the following: the knife’s trajectory was perfect for Seth’s heart; Krebe’s attack triggered every itchy finger in the barn; they all opened fire—every gun had been pointed at Cal and Seth; a gaggle of bullets flew at them.
Seth’s internal distress exceeded its preestablished parameters. His stomach and shoulders clenched tightly to the point of pain, anticipating the impacts of multiple slugs; he thought he’d squeezed out every drop of juice, every ion of energy in his corporeal form. His staff soaked this tension like a sponge—a spot in the back of his brain erupted in a fiery burst as though a blot of boiling oil had dripped onto his occipital lobe; he believed a hoodlum had shot him in the back of the head, until the sensation exploded throughout his brain and his staff emitted a burst, like radiation from a nova, just as the knife and bullets approached him.
The blade and every single bullet in the air shimmered and transformed into small purple blossoms, flowers with a pungent sticky sweet aroma that bounced forcefully off their jackets and heads. Real time reasserted itself as a final blossom bounced off Krebe’s ear while he attempted to avoid Cal’s return shot.
Cal tried to fire off another round at Krebe, but the gun jammed. He pulled out his clip, which was completely wedged with purple blossoms. Everyone in the barn was picking flowers out of their guns.
“Really?!” Cal cried. “Every single bullet? You couldn’t have left mine?”
With that, Cal pulled Bòid Géard out of its scabbard in one artfully smooth motion that carried it through into an arc behind him to sever Cody’s gun hand from his forearm. Cody screamed like a little girl and dropped to his knees, clutching at his newly minted stump. McCoy threw his pistol at Cal, who deflected it with the sword, twisted to avoid McCoy’s feeble attempt at a punch, throwing the big guy off balance and exposing his back to the cop. In a swift motion, Cal changed his sword grip to that of holding an ice pick and drove the sword through the back of the man’s thigh and out through the quadriceps. Instead of pulling the sword back out the way it went in, he twisted the blade’s angle and yanked sideward, cutting the hamstring and anterior cruciate ligament like an Easter ham to free his weapon. The bull of a man went down in agony and bled into the dirt. MacDonnell had done both Cody and McCoy in less than five seconds.
These people are all way too fast for me,
Seth thought.
The other meth heads, realizing no amount of money was worth getting hacked to pieces, took off. Each crew collected their respective leader on the way, wrapping belts and T-shirt tourniquets around their wounds, and disappeared into the cold darkness. Krebe’s face showed its first sign of distress—Seth wasn’t as magically neutered as suspected, and MacDonnell was better armed. Cal was upon Krebe in a beat.
“What about my wife?” Cal said.
Krebe reclaimed the farmer’s rifle in time to stave off Cal’s raging thrusts, parries, and ripostes with the steel barrel and his ornamental dagger. He lost his bowler as the cop’s offensive drove him back into a dimly lit corner of the barn.
Seth had never seen Cal so angry, not even at him. The reverend, the prince, and their captors were the only ones left.
“Back, wizard,” ordered Todgarten, holding the reverend like a shield. Seth appreciated the irony of the seven-foot bruiser’s fear of him, in lieu of his lack of magical proficiency. He didn’t know how he did the flower trick and didn’t think he could repeat it unless his life depended on it.
Cal and Krebe continued to go at each other in the darker far corner of the barn. They could barely make out the figures, gray silhouettes against a gray backdrop. Someone was losing badly.
“Why should you die for Dorn?” Allyn Grey posited to the two henchmen. “The captain will not harm you if you spare the boy.”
“Krebe’s art is death,” Todgarten said, trying to convince himself more than the others. “He is a master.”
So much for team loyalty … Todgarten had no intention of going to help Krebe fight Callum, Seth realized. Dorn’s style of management was fear driven; his people’s priorities shifted depending on what they feared most at the moment. How did Farrenheil ever get anything done? Dorn’s family must be the scariest in the Twelve Kingdoms.
Daniel wheezed under Hommar’s forearm lock. He had to get the man off the kid’s neck. The lackey believed Daniel’s life was the only thing protecting him from Seth at the moment. Seth’s incompetence years ago put this boy in danger. Daniel’s life was hard and mired in pain instead of love. Hommar was waiting for orders—anyone’s orders. He was not a big-picture thinker, but if Hommar realized he could end Aandor’s claim with one well-placed snap, all their efforts to save Daniel would be moot.
Colby Dretch snuck up behind Todgarten with a pitchfork. The detective jammed it into the giant’s calf. Todgarten yowled in pain and tried to swipe Colby with one arm while holding on to the reverend with the other. Colby retained the pitchfork and jabbed at the giant again, this time sticking him in the ribs. The giant let go of Reverend Grey to extract the farm instrument.
Reverend Grey lunged at Hommar, who was too distracted by Dretch’s attack to realize the minister was on him. Grey didn’t struggle—he closed his eyes as though in prayer. Hommar tried to pull away, then made a face like he was in shock, like he’d just materialized in the middle of Antarctica in winter. Reverend Grey moved a hand to Hommar’s face and touched his own forehead to the man’s. Hommar relinquished his grip on Daniel, and Seth pulled the kid away from them. Daniel’s neck was red from the pressure. He rubbed it and took several deep breaths.
“Who are you people?” the kid asked. “When did I become the center of the universe?”
“Kid, we need a whole lot more time than we have right now to explain it,” Seth told him.
Hommar stopped struggling. “Prelate, how may this sinner serve the gods?” he asked the reverend.
“Stop the giant,” said Grey. “Take him down.”
Hommar lunged into a football tackle, driving into Todgarten’s back. The giant, who’d been focused on the unkillable Colby Dretch, was taken completely by surprise. Hommar jammed a hunting knife through his former cohort’s ribs.
“Hommar, you fool,” yowled Todgarten. “You allowed the cleric to bless you.”
As they struggled, Colby jumped into the fray, helping to weigh the giant down. Todgarten kicked the detective off easily and put his attention toward the more dangerous opponent. Colby shook his head, got up, and calmly joined Seth, Daniel, and the reverend. “Not jumping back in?” Seth asked.
Colby produced a thumping velvet pouch, one that had been on Todgarten’s belt moments before. “Nope, got what I wanted.”
Todgarten broke Hommar’s back on his knee and then snapped the man’s neck just as easily. He threw the man aside like a bag of garbage and faced the four.
“Your tricks won’t work on me cleric and the wizard is a fraud. I will break your bones as I did—”
The whup-whup-whup sound of the tumbling dagger was only audible for a second before Krebe’s ornamental knife lodged into the side of the giant’s neck. Blood gushed forth, but not as much as if Todgarten had removed the knife. Miraculously, the giant remained on his feet.
A bloody Cal MacDonnell emerged from the dark corner of the barn. The giant picked up the pitchfork and swung it at Cal, who ducked and then used his sword to trap the pronged end against the ground. Todgarten tried to raise it again, but Cal snapped the handle near the tines with his boot. The giant started to lunge at the knight, but pulled back just in time to avoid a deeper cut across his abdomen as Cal arced the sword across Todgarten’s belly. Todgarten backed up and tripped on a hay bale.
“I yield,” he said coming to his knees, putting his hands in front of him to ward off the knight. But MacDonnell hacked the creature’s hands off in one swipe, adding two more red streams to the giant’s tally. Todgarten wheezed and gurgled, his neck wound filling his mouth and throat with blood.
“For Tristan,” MacDonnell said. He pulled the dagger out of the giant’s neck, unimpinging his carotid artery. Todgarten’s blood poured forth like mountain streams in a spring thaw.
“Holy shit!” cried Daniel.
Allyn Grey lightly smacked the back of the boy’s head. “That’s what my daughter gets when she talks nonsense,” he told the prince. To Callum he asked, “Is that the last of them?”
“Not quite. I came to get you.”
They followed the knight back to the start of a red trail … a mortally wounded Krebe dragged himself along the barn floor, the bloody period on a red-streaked exclamation point he etched into the dirt behind him. His right leg below the knee was gone.
Krebe propped himself up against a bale of hay to face his enemies. They observed him, like roadkill not lucky enough to have died instantly.
“I—I choose who dies,” he sputtered. Blood spat out when Krebe talked. A wild, demented stare had set into the eyes. “I am the artist—the warden of death. The bringer of pain.”
“Stealing the lives of young girls is a coward’s delusion,” Cal said. “You are a madman serving a mad master.”
Krebe focused for a moment. He looked at his severed leg and smiled. Bloodstained teeth added to his sinister appeal, like hyenas after a kill. “My brother will be so disappointed to play the cripple for half his life,” he said, laughing hysterically.
“What did you mean about my wife?” Cal said.
“The master hears voices in his migraines,” Krebe said, responding to questions not put to him. He’d lost his train of thought.
“My wife,” Cal repeated.
Seth wondered about Cat himself. Something wasn’t right. They hadn’t heard from her in over a day and Krebe had been entirely certain of his ability to barter Catherine for his life.
“My greatest masterpiece,” Krebe laughed mechanically, sputtering blood all over himself.
Cal put a boot on one of Krebe’s hands and instructed Colby to secure the other. Then he looked at the reverend. “Prelate, I have to know,” Cal pleaded.
Krebe squirmed and writhed in horror at the approaching cleric.
“No! No! No!” he screamed.
Reverend Grey laid hands on him. Fear had converted to sobbing—Krebe had suddenly become burdened by a deep affecting sorrow.
“Oh gods,” he wailed, wretchedly. “Oh gods … what have you done? My gift! You’ve taken my gift! My art…”
“What did you do?” Daniel asked.
“The darkness within him … his inner pain holds it together and gives it shape,” Grey said. “I cured the pain and released the bind. He’s now reliving his lifetime of evil from a new perspective—without the pain and anger that inspired his actions.”
“Oooooooh gods!” Krebe exclaimed, in the midst of intense remorse.
“You’re dying,” Allyn told him. “Please, my son, make your final act a repentant one—that some god somewhere might take your soul when you leave this mortal coil.”
Krebe, burdened by a lifetime of guilt spilled everything: The Plaza hotel base, Cat’s capture, Dorn’s madness, the headaches, how they got to this world, and how many men they had left. And then he rambled about his murders; the hundreds of maidens he raped and tortured, until the guardians could barely stand to hear any more. Krebe grasped desperately for redemption from a lifetime of evil as his life ran out of him. He wound down still confessing, and then just closed his eyes and stopped.
Seth realized as hard as his personal path to redemption was, it would never compare to Krebe’s. Krebe would need several lifetimes to atone for his sins. Seth was glad this monster had left the world. He believed, finally, that he could accomplish good after all and make amends for the past. Ben had been right. It would be a long road, but not an impossible one.
Cal turned to Daniel and looked at the boy from head to toe, as though he were purchasing a racehorse—as though to affirm his existence. Cal laid his big hands on Daniel’s shoulders. If it were not for Cat’s kidnapping, Cal would be exuberant at this moment. Instead, the cop was gazing at a nonbarterable treasure—the only thing in this universe Dorn would relinquish Cal’s wife for.
The boy smiled, nervously, unaware of the cop’s predicament. He was also obviously in awe of Callum.
“Thanks for saving me,” he said.
Daniel exuded a humble sincerity infectious enough to make even Cal smile.
“It’s my very greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance, Daniel,” Cal said. “Has the reverend told you of your origins?”
“There wasn’t time,” Allyn said.
“Uh … am I going to jail?” Daniel asked.
“No,” Cal said. “I’m responsible for everything that’s happened to you. You should never have had the life you ended up with—to have to defend yourself from a child abuser.”
Seth’s heart sank. Like a good leader, Cal took full responsibility, but he was not to blame. Seth wanted to confess that Daniel’s hardships, his trials and tribulations, were his fault.
“Ever ride in a helicopter?” Cal asked the boy.
Seth noted the dead farmer as they walked to their vehicles. How would Cal square all this with the local cops? Were Malcolm’s pockets so deep, he could sweep even this away?
“You did well,” Cal said. Seth looked around to make sure the remark was meant for him. Did Cal mean in the fight, or the spell that located Colby?
Seth didn’t realize how much he yearned for the cop’s approval. “Really?” was all he managed to say.
“No guarantee Lelani could have done better.” There was a mark of bitterness in Cal’s voice as he said this.
Poor Lelani.
Catherine had been her charge. Despite being the superior wizard, she’d failed. Seth had been lucky. He was deaf, dumb, and blind in the ways of magic, a possessor of a complex machine with no instruction manual, but somehow made it through stumbling and bumbling along.
“Flowers?” Cal added as a side note. He pulled a purple blossom out of Seth’s hair and handed it to him.